Speaking of her, I gave my copy of her CD, The Symphonies: Dreams Memories & Parties to a friend as a birthday gift, and I ordered myself a replacement on Emily's MySpace page. It's simply a link to send a PayPal payment of $12, which is how I bought my copy before. Welllls, after a long time of not getting it, PayPal finally informed me that my payment was being canceled due to Emily not confirming her address or something like that. I imagine it's because she's been on tour and hasn't had time to attend to it. Anyway, I was starting to wonder if I shouldn't have given up my copy, as now it was starting to make sense why the only copies available on Amazon.com were from third party sellers on Amazon.com, who were asking $94.99 and $129.99. A more recent seller is asking the comparatively reasonable price of $49.99. Thankfully, I found another option in Music Millennium. I wasn't familiar with the site, but at $9.99 for the album, I considered the risk worth it. I ordered two copies, one to replace my own and an extra to give to another friend. My copies arrived today, so hallelujah. Of course, if I was less picky, the MP3 download version of the album was always available for $8.99 on Amazon.com, but I'll leave lossy downloads to the younger generation. Give me physical media (that's my pickup line for Regina, to anyone following my restraining order attempt).

Anyway, if you're going to try out Emily Wells, I would still recommend this album, even though I like Beautiful Sleepyhead and the Laughing Yaks just as much after spending time with it. Get both if you're mega-rich.

I agree Fred. I thought at first I liked Porcupine Tree but later realized I just happened to demo the songs on each CD that I liked. Overall I found I didn’t care for them that much. However, I also agree with sonicfox that the SQ is great.

I'm listening to my computer not suck at sending its audio signal out the HDMI of my Radeon video card. I was having trouble with the sound getting some really crappy garbage. It would start out fine, then get all of that disturbing noise, then go back to being fine, and like that. I hadn't swapped out the cable or tried much of anything beyond different bit-depth/resolution output options in the software, but nothing I tried helped it. Steam was kind enough to offer to upgrade my Radeon Catalyst drivers for me. I guess they're doing automatic upgrades of that now if you want it to. Anyway, after installing the new version, I've had zero crap noise, so I'm happy. I hope this doesn't jinx me.

Listening to Club 8 now. Sounds very good loud. I'd only listened to them at more moderate levels.

The Scala & Kolacny Brothers cover of Radiohead's "Creep." It's what's playing in the trailer for The Social Network, and it's one of the reasons I want to watch that movie. Very effective at setting a tone. Too bad their CDs seem to be expensive imports. I would love to hear their other covers, especially of songs I'm familiar with, like Garbage's "I Think I'm Paranoid" and Sinéad O'Connor's "Daddy I'm Fine."